Juxtapoz Art and Culture-Spring_2019

NEO RAUCH JUXTAPOZ.COM 87

and nutrient-rich. The connecting element that
led to this condensation may be atmospheric.
Climatic conditions conducive to creative activity
could also play a role. I just do not know.

You are known internationally for your work
as an individual artist, as well as for your
position as a leading member of the New Leipzig
School of painting. Tell me a little about how
this community has supported each other and
grown together. Has your role as the leading
figure in this art community helped nurture
your own work and sense of purpose?
The "New Leipzig School" is a term that emerged
independently and outside of our consciousness as
painting contemporaries. This label was pinned to
us and did not appeal or seem fitting to everyone.
Basically, it referred to the fact that in Leipzig,
painting was still taught on a high figurative

level, even though most “experts” in the early ’90s

thought to abolish the utilization of brushes after

40,000 years. Painting was considered obsolete by

these cretins, and those who nevertheless turned

to it could be sure of their contempt and ignorance.

In this respect, these years were a healing retreat,

in the course of which it came to a thinning of

the people, as only the real painter could resist

the temptation of electronic cabinets and those of

conceptualist seminars.

In any case, working in this blind spot was

beneficial to my work, although the feeling of

being marginalized was already gnawing at my

pride. My first big personal exhibition with Judy

Lybke at the gallery Eigen + Art in 1993 was a

commercial flop, although the pictures were great!

Only that at the time, the only people who saw it

that way were Rosa, Judy, and me.

What will you be showing for your upcoming

exhibition at David Zwirner in Hong Kong?

What new developments have you explored

in this new body of work, and are there any

aspects of this work that have come about in

consideration of the location?

There will be eight large (nearly 10’ x 9’) and seven

small “handbag-sized” pictures. Whatever is new

to them, new to my standards, that is, will only

come to me much later. I am still too entangled in

the sometimes agonizing development of these

canvases to be able to attest to them a peculiarity.

Also, the location of the presentation did not play

a major role, yet rather an underlying one.

Neo Rauch’s Aus dem Boden / From the Floor will

be on view at The Drawing Center, NYC, from April

12—July 28, 2019.

Above: Interview, Oil on canvas, 82.5” x 118”, 2006